East Asia, 1800-1912

The dominance of European powers in East Asia and its center of accumulation in the last decades of the 20th century have posed enormous challenges in the understanding of industrialized nations. Modernization and national development theories have received notable criticisms from well-developed experiences such as plan vs. market, and this looks like regional and not national. The phenomenon has been characterized by a regional scope that has challenged theories of global systems, which depend heavily on the global economic tripartite division into semi-periphery, periphery, and core. Regional integration theories formulated from experiences in contemporary Europe have been challenged relating to the success of non-governmental infrastructure connecting East Asia sub-regions. This took place even with the lack of intergovernmental organizations characterizing the North American and the European Union Free Trade Treaties.

At the primary cause of all these challenges lies the significant and peculiar trajectory of East Asia...
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